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I Decide; Therefore, I am

Bush responding today about the growing calls for Rumsfeld’s resignation.

“I hear the voices and I read the front page and I know the speculation,” the president told reporters in the Rose Garden. “But I’m the decider and I decide what’s best.

Father knows Best! There is nothing wrong with being decisive, but a decision-maker (“decider” in Bush speak) has to be informed, thoughtful and willing to listen to those who might disagree. The real problem with Bush “The Decider” is that he is not a listener, a reader or a critical thinker.

Well, that may be a bit unfair. We know the voice Bush, “the Decider” listens to- God.

See, for example, The Guardian, reporting on a meeting with the Palestinian delegation during the Israeli-Palestinian summit at the Egpytian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, four months after the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003:

One of the delegates, Nabil Shaath, who was Palestinian foreign minister at the time, said: “President Bush said to all of us: ‘I am driven with a mission from God’. God would tell me, ‘George go and fight these terrorists in Afghanistan’. And I did. And then God would tell me ‘George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq’. And I did.”